Just Write {92}

July 8, 2013

They come in with a stroller. A small coffee shop and a tiny baby and Dad is behind the stroller and looking so big. Another couple comes in less than five minutes later. They grin at scrunched up newborn faces that sleep ignore them. They grin at each other. He’ll be a week tomorrow.

Yeah, we remember those days, the other mom says back, and her baby is all of about four months old.

I smile inside because that’s what it’s like, going to so slow like Eeyore especially the minutes at night and then so fast when you see a teeny tiny piglet in a stroller like yours.

They are immediately swapping stories of way back then and this very day. What the doctor said about this and that. What was normal for them. They are doing some kind of dance we all do at first. The new parent dance.

Swaddling is a topic and I don’t mean to eavesdrop it’s just that I’m free-writing this and they are right there, next to me and I couldn’t NOT hear them. True story.

Oh yes, the doctor has told them that swaddling will certainly mean sleeping. They roll their eyes at each other and I roll mine inside. As if all babies sleep. As if all babies sleep the same way. Now I’m remembering Miles and how much he loved swaddling and how much Asher hated it and how it lasted only the first few days with our kicking and screaming Elsie Jane.

You just do what you do with the one that you have while you do it, until you don’t.

I want to hug these new moms because that sleep deprivation is so much. They are pony-tailed and sleepy-eyed and I’ll bet you anything she slept in that t-shirt. I wouldn’t mind telling her I slept in my t-shirt too and I don’t even have a newborn.

A toddler strolls by me with no stroller, all drunken like with a t-shirt that was picked out for him. It has hot dogs and a joke on it.

Two elementary school aged boys are on the other side of me, playing Go Fish with their mom. They speak fluent Spanish and English and I’m jealous.

There are two teen girls sitting up at the counter flirting with the guys that work here. Espresso machines. Giggles. Wide eyes. Sly remarks. Just a little while ago their parents were new and now they’re here, these kids. Not sleeping much at night and still whining, but taller like the Dad behind the stroller.

Speaking of, the Baby Daddy is showing off his bundle to the girls at the counter and they oooooh and aaaaah and say how cute he is, the sleeping one. Daddy rocks back and forth and smiles big and tells them all about his boy. Then he heads back to the table with the other couple and his wife and another small baby. They talk of nothing other than those babies. What did they ever talk about Before?

We are one big tribe of people that have been over-taken and just like the beginning we are only just trying to figure it out and it is so messy and hard and good.

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This is the 92nd installment of Just Write, an exercise in free writing your ordinary and extraordinary moments. {Please see the details here.} I would love to read your freely written words so join me and link up below. You can add the url of your post at any time. Just be sure it’s a link to your Just Write post, not to your main page, and please don’t link to posts that are not freely written in the spirit of capturing moments–you know, don’t link to how-to posts, lists or sponsored posts. Also, please link back to this post in yours so people know where to go if they’d like to join in.

Please take a moment to visit someone else who has linked up! It’s a really good way to meet new writers and get inspired by the meaning behind their moments. Word? Thank you!

Yes. We are one big tribe. Always trying to figure it out. And should I tell you that the t-shirt I had on the other day when I saw you I had also worn to bed? And I don’t have a newborn excuse… Just a stubborn and adorable and sleep-fighting 2 year old? I probably shouldn’t tell you that…

Man, thank heaven for those parent connections. I remember so well how it felt to go to a coffee shop with my newborn and relax just a tiny bit. “We’re ok, we’re doing this.”Laura recently posted..there and back again

Oh, you do this so well! The “just write” part. I love the story you have laid out before us, and I am realizing more than ever that writing simply can sometimes be writing with motive. Thanks for the inspiration and example!stacey recently posted..An afternoon thinking and doing

I love watching new parents or those with just one little one. I chuckle a little to myself and make sure not to be one of “those people” giving out unwanted advice… ;)Elaine A. recently posted..I Did Not Want to Leave…

How I love this. The people watching. The empathy. The remembering of the all encompassing beginning.
And then the step back realization that it’s all different. Messy, hard and good indeed.Julia recently posted..Becoming Real

I have to echo what Leigh Ann said about “You just do what you do with the one that you have while you do it, until you don’t.” I really think that sums up parenting so perfectly. You do what works until it no longer works and then you try new things until something works…until it doesn’t. I really enjoyed this post, thanks!